Other students have joined with Felts to participate in a national campaign under the Special Olympics to end the use of the r-word. The Plymouth high school students are planning to make a banner to alert their school community about the campaign; they will also encourage people to sign a pledge not to use the word. In addition, they plan to hold a bake sale, sell bracelets and pencils on Friday to raise money for the Special Olympics and also for the Food Exploration Class for students with disabilities.

Felts says she plans to become a special education teacher herself. “The students with disabilities, they are just as smart as everyone else,” she says — a message that should itself be spread far and wide, and even more so as they are spoken by someone who really knows how much words can hurt.

I have this goop for painting, it makes it so my arcylics don't dry up fast. I love my retarded ooze. it's the best retardent for art. although I think I use to much as it makes the paint foamy and all weird.

Words probably hurt people more than "sticks and stones." You can have a physical wound and still be happy, but when you have been attacked verbally and you accept the attack, you feel bad inside. Feeling bad inside is what makes us unhappy. It is wrong for people to attack others verbally; they cause great unhappiness and poor self esteem. We should realize when we are attacked verbally that the attacker has low self-esteem and that's why he/she is attacking. But it very difficult to think that way when you are being attacked.

hurt people hurt people, when the children who bully other children, most often they were bullied probably in their own families so they don't know how to deal with others, they need to be lovenly brought back to where they should be, unfortunatly they won't be. so they will go on to bully more and create more bullies

I cringe when I hear the word retarded used and the pundits who who have problem with this word ..it's all about way the word is used .. and retarded should be removed from the dictionary, there are plenty of words to take the place of retard as in a process. Names should be placed in the dictionary for those who support the continued use of this word!

AS such ongoing bullying and insults are a form of assault ~ the victims should often be allowed to give their attackers a good smack in the mouth to silence them, or by proxy if their attacker(s) is significantly bigger than them ~ as retaliating against an attack when you are honestly in fear for your own wellbeing is always a good justification for "self defence".

The word "retard" means to slow down, or to restrict something from speeding up ~ as in a mechanical or engineering sense ~ besides its now-limited use in a medical sense...

I don't believe in removing perfectly good words from the general lexicon just because one rude and common little subset of morons (in this case young bullies out to display their low levels of ignorance..) are choosing to misuse said words and terms..

While terms like "retardation" or "spasticity" do still have some limited use in a proper vocabulary, the general use of the terms retard, spastic and spaz by those rude and ignorant bullying teenagers to attack and demean their innocent victims is inexcusable and beyond a joke ~ besides which, their street usage is far removed from their strict definitions.
Like many of those insults from teen bullies where they think they are so smart to misappropriate and misuse words beyond their limited comprehension ~ but which in reality only shows up their poor education levels and their own limited and restricted vocabularies..
And that's not even addressing the issue of those bullies own poor self-image, and generally pointless and empty lives.

Besides which, dyslexia isn't even a form of retardation anyway ~ that just shows the degree of ignorance, and poor upbringing and socialisation by its parents, of that gormless twat misusing the term as an insult..

AS such ongoing bullying and insults are a form of assault ~ the victims should often be allo